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Daniel Stern has subtitled this, his latest book, ‘A Unified View of Parent-Infant Psychotherapy’. His aim is to bring together the different strands that constitute the growing field of Infant Psychiatry, and to suggest an over-arching hypothesis that she should inform them all.
In Part One Stern gives a survey of the constituent elements of the ‘Clinical System’ that is created when therapist meets patient. These are the parents’ and the infant's mental representations, the actions of these participants and the representations and actions that the therapist introduces into the situation. He reviews a wide range of the literature that provides models for understanding these different elements.
In Part Two Stern presents a review (acknowledged to be incomplete) of different forms of parent-infant psychotherapy categorised according to their ‘Port of Entry’ into this clinical system; and then looks at the commonalities among the different approaches.
In Part Three he suggests that a unique psychic constellation is in operation at this time of early infancy: the triad of grandmother-mother-baby displacing the oedipal triad as the preeminent organising principle of mental life. He argues that due